Seperated at 22 all Happened in a Week
Hey fellas, today has been a decent enough day. I'm about 3 weeks since she dropped the nuke.
We got married young and much too fast, it seemed the excitement to start our life was burning too hot to ignore. I'm a very sensitive fella, I've had my share of mental health struggles in the past and worked very hard to build a nice stable life for myself.
We knew each other since the first week of highschool, our rapport built quickly and the chemistry was palpable. Life pulled us apart at times but there was a magnetism that drew us back together.
When we reconnected a few years ago our love was something of fairytales, I now know the passion retrospectively as mania. The promises she threw around echo in my head, shells of what they used to be.
Time went by and we discussed marriage. It was much too quick and I was unwise to consider it. I never really thought much of the institution of marriage, but I understood the weight some assigned to it. As such I truly thought it through, I knew it was quick but I knew her so well.
Cut to now. I look back on the last month as a blur. It started as a small issue or so I thought. The kitchen being messy, I didn't feel the weight behind her complaints. I improved, constantly readjusting my standards to try and meet hers. But the goal posts kept moving. The kitchen has always been my space, as I cook all the meals.
But that turned into a smouldering Resentment, she began punishing me for loving her. It started small, she stopped offering love unprompted. No hello when she would get home, I felt it as I had to initiate any intimacy.
Then it grew colder, more pointed. She would pretend to not hear me when I would tell her I loved her. When I would come to bed she would toss and turn until I stopped trying to hold her. Any kindness disappeared. Previously I had given her space as she insisted I needed to do if she was struggling. But by now I was begging her to let me in. To allow me to try and understand what was happening so we could try and fix it. But she just insisted nothing was wrong.
I held out hope it would get better, but it just grew worse. The only time I would see joy in her eyes was when she spoke about her friend from work, a bloke I had barely heard of previously. Or the occasional smirk I caught on her face when she would berate me, or I had a bad day. By this time I lost my appetite completely. The only words she would speak were attempts to hurt me. I felt her willing me to break, but my love made my blind.
It all shattered one Tuesday night. She began probing me about some ice cream I had thrown out because our freezer has turned off the night prior. I couldn't handle it anymore, I had never felt more alone and unloved. Growing up with an abusive father I learnt anger was an ugly emotion, I had always approached discourse with an optimism and hope to solve the problem. But I snapped at her, raising my voice more than I'm proud of. Telling her to calm the fuck down, then muttering Jesus Christ as I walked off.
I felt disgusted with myself, I didn't yell and I know that. But it was much too close, by this point I wasn't me anymore. I had lost 5 kilos, I couldn't bare to eat. My acne had flared up all over my body.
I took some distance. To calm down, to be in a headspace capable of assessing the damage and fixing it.
But when that time came to days later, she cut me deeper than I ever expected. She gave up on us that day. The next few weeks were wrought with her indecision. She fed on my love through this, she got love, affection, trust and sex from me. And in return she went back to her routine. Acting as if nothing had changed, completely ignoring the potential divorce looming over our heads
I couldn't handle this a week in. I wrote her a letter, putting my heart out. Desperately trying to remind her of our love and the future we were so close to. The mortgage applications I was in the middle of. The children we had already named. Days of self doubt had given me a long list to desperately apologise for. I willed myself to be perfect for her. To chase the fleeing goalposts until death.
It wasn't enough. She told me that night she was done. Still refusing an explanation.
The next day I finally got one though. The spark had died, a pattern reminiscent of everyone of her relationships prior. She admitted she only married me to seek to be trapped into making it work. A product of what she suspects to be borderline personality disorder.
That was three weeks ago and she moves out in a week. She's been so cold and calculated. Looking exclusively forward. She seems gleeful in her excitement to be without me. And it hurts fellas. I gave my all. I carried the entire relationships emotional load from the start.
And I'm so fucking angry. I've never been one to get angry but I'm smouldering constantly. It feels as if the rage can't take the shape of any words. I've been working hard to do the right things. See friends, channel my feelings into art, work and exercise. Take care of myself physically and mentally. I'm seeking out psychological help though this. Because it's super important that my mental health does not decline past a point where I can't manage it.
But I'm really hurt.
I went out on Friday and met two horrible women, my best mate drunkenly told them of the divorce and they started laughing at me. I felt so small, as if I was a child in kindergarten who just wet myself and was surrounded being laughed at.
I wore my heart on my sleeve, I know truly that I loved her. I showed in every way I knew how. I put in work every single day.
What I thought was a thing of beauty has now been ridiculed. They say there laughing at me. Only stopping to try and figure out what I did to cause the situation.
I am comfortable in blaming myself and self doubt, I understand it and it's familiar. I'm not faultless not even close, I'm a flawed man but I try so hard it hurts every day to be the best man I can be. But there I was sitting, listening to these two people probe to find how it's all my fault. And it's not. And I'm really scared this will be my life.
Am I the discount mug on the shelf with a chip in it now? Damaged before I even make it to the counter. I fear there's a stereotype of men through a divorce. Women have this celebration of freedom, rid of the man that caused the hurt.
But truly I feel I fit the feminine stereotype. I feel like less of a man, but still reaping the assumptions.
I just want a hug. I want to stop feeling this hate. I want to stop feeling this love. I want to feel wanted again. I want the love I felt for myself before I found her back. I really just want a hug